


A Bit Of Thinking

by ElenaCee



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Angsty Introspection, Canon Compliant, Gen, “They’re Back; Aren’t They” Fic Exchange
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-10
Updated: 2018-09-10
Packaged: 2019-07-10 14:50:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15951578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElenaCee/pseuds/ElenaCee
Summary: Lucifer and Chloe both have a bit of thinking to do.Part of the "They're Back, Aren't They" fic exchange.





	A Bit Of Thinking

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SomeoneAsGoodAsYou (the_wanlorn)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_wanlorn/gifts).



> My prompt was "Promised Land" by Hannah Miller to be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bB8A_UcSvRc
> 
> This beautiful prompt was given by SomeoneAsGoodAsYou - I hope you like what I've done with it. As always when doing one of these, I feel like I haven't done the prompt justice (listen to it, people, it's beautiful).
> 
> Takes place sometime after 3x01.

It was dark - or as dark as the LA sky ever got. To angel eyes, accustomed to the bright lights of Heaven, the darkness would be nigh absolute. Lucifer hadn’t been an angel for a long time, though, and the light pollution was sufficient to render this part of the Earthly night bright enough for him to read small print by, if he so chose.

It had been much darker than this in Hell.

Downstairs, the throbbing of basses indicated that the party at Lux was in full swing, beckoning him with its promise of sin. But the Devil wasn’t feeling like sinning tonight. Standing on his balcony, he kept staring into the night-quite-darkness that was beckoning him, tempting him, in another way.

He stared, locked in a silent battle with himself.

_ What the hell,  _ he finally thought, which was all the justification he’d ever needed for anything he’d ever done.

He had never really sworn to never use the wings his Father had forced upon him, so he wasn’t breaking any oaths. Tonight, it was time to finally use them. Tonight, the memories of Hell where he’d never been able to fly for any length of time kept encroaching upon him. He needed to move to escape them. He needed to  _ fly. _

He took off without any further thought, half jumping, half falling off his balcony. His wings came out, heeding the ancient call as if he’d never stopped flying. They caught the wind easily, muscles straining pleasurably against the call of gravity, gaining momentum, then gliding in the thermals.

Just like riding a bike, or like having sex.

Pointedly refusing to feel grateful for the return of his wings, Lucifer kept flying, LA a sea of moving lights and occasional tall buildings beneath him.

He remembered not being able to fly because his wings had been burned during the Fall. He remembered staring at his reflection in a small pool of dark liquid at the very bottom of Hell and realizing that he had irrevocably changed. He remembered feeling hopeless, unwanted, alone. He remembered feeling guilty, so very guilty, for causing a rift in his family.

He remembered rage, rage, and finally, resignation.

He remembered the darkness, missing the light of Heaven, missing his siblings. And, yes, even missing his parents, even though he’d never admitted that to himself.

He was barely admitting it to himself now.

In Heaven, in the Silver City, there was room enough for flight, and the distances were so vast that flying really was the only way to get anywhere reasonably quickly. It had been second nature there to take to the air at a moment’s notice. Walking was for the wingless.

The Fall had taken that from him, as it had so many other things.

But now, now, the wind hissed in quiet susurration through the feathers of his wings. It was a warm wind, different from the hot air of Hell that was always saturated with ash. The lights that kept LA’s sky from going completely dark lacked Hell’s blueish tint. He was not alone here on Earth.

Flying through the Earth night and feeling and seeing all this, the Devil knew with every fiber of his being that he was not in Hell anymore. Here, now, he could allow himself to believe that his human friends really were his friends. But only for a moment, because he knew the truth - he was a monster. Monsters didn’t have friends. Whoever saw his true face would need to re-evaluate all they knew about him, like Doctor Linda had been forced to.

He only showed his Devil face when whoever saw it deserved to be looking at a monster and being reminded of the concept of eternal punishment. At all other times, he concealed it beneath the memory of who he had been. This must be the reason, he mused, why he hadn’t been able to show the Detective his true face. She didn’t deserve punishment. She didn’t deserve having to bear the sight of him. The one thing that would truly convince her of his identity was the one thing he couldn’t show her; physically couldn’t show her.

She would never believe him any of his “Devil talk” without proof. There would never be a “thing” between them with the truth concealed like that.

Flying through the LA sky, surrounded by the sights and sounds of Earth, the Devil felt the old hopelessness return.

He had come to Earth not because he was bored. He had done it to escape the dark, and an increasingly oppressing and miserable existence, otherwise known as being unhappy. Yes, he had been deeply unhappy. Reigning in Hell might be preferable to serving in Heaven - Milton had gotten that bit right at least -, but that didn’t mean that it was a good way to exist, his throne in its hellish palace notwithstanding.

Not after eons had passed.

It was hope that had driven him upstairs, hope that kept him here, in this city, near the Detective. Hope that kept him chained to her. But in his heart of hearts, he knew that his hope was futile. He was the Devil. His very aspect was that of a monster. The Devil was a monster who had caused a rift in a family and didn’t deserve love.

He deserved Chloe’s love least of all. The Promised Land wasn’t for the Devil.

He didn’t deserve reconciliation with his Father, either, but that was a bout of introspection for another day.

Usually, he kept these thoughts at bay by silencing his brain with whatever method happened to be at hand, something Doctor Linda had realized soon after she’d started seeing him. Being an expert at distracting himself from his own thoughts, he had distracted himself from her wisdom as well. But just like bad food, unpleasant thoughts and memories had a habit of coming up irrepressibly, no matter how much distraction he used.

And now, they had caught up with him even in flight.

Sighing, he landed on the next available rooftop. If he was going to brood, he might as well do it right here, where he could look out towards the ocean and not worry about colliding with airplanes.

 

* * *

 

Chloe opened the cupboard, revealing a full bottle of red wine.

It was one of those rare nights when she had the apartment to herself and no case to work on. Curling up on her sofa with a good glass of red and a book or maybe a nice movie sounded appealing. Or it had until about thirty seconds ago.

She looked at the beckoning bottle. It reminded her of burgers and fries and no ketchup. It reminded her of Lucifer.

So many things did, these days. Nearly everything in her apartment had some connotation to her partner. Nearly everything in the precinct had, too. He had touched her life in so many ways.

Which made it all the more frustrating that she still didn’t quite know what his deal really was.

Oh, she knew the core of him. Almost from the moment they met, she had had him pegged as a Good Man. For all his innuendos and casual flings and bouts of violence and carefree approach to substance abuse, Lucifer Morningstar had never misstepped where it really mattered. Otherwise, she’d have had drunk sex with him not even a month after that first meeting.

But still. The Good Man wasn’t all he was. He was a still water that had sharks and God knew what else beneath its surface. If those sharks didn’t attack, that was entirely down to him and his choices and his self control, but not to the fact that they were tame.

The bottle of red was still beckoning, tempting her with the promise of getting a nice buzz,  but she realized that this wasn’t what she wanted right now. She needed a clear head. She needed to do a bit of thinking, and doing her thinking while walking sounded appealing right now.

Grabbing her jacket and her keys (and her utility belt, because you can’t take the cop out of the girl), she directed her steps towards the shore.

They’d had a moment, then another, and Chloe had been so sure that this was it for all of two hours, until her nose started bleeding. And next thing she knew, Lucifer was married to another woman.

That had been the first blow.

The second blow had come in the precinct, when Lucifer played that crude joke on her instead of showing her whatever he’d claimed he wanted to show her. That had hurt. Just thinking about it still hurt.

The road took a turn, revealing the beach and the soft sounds of the surf.

It was a beautiful night, warm and calm, with a gibbous moon lighting the way. If it weren’t for LA’s typical air pollution, she would be able to see the stars. If it weren’t for Lucifer’s Luciferness, she’d be able to enjoy this walk.

He had wanted to show her something then to prove that he was the Devil. It hadn’t worked. Of course it hadn’t. How could it? There was no Devil. There was no God. Heaven was the sky, and Hell probably earth’s molten core that occasionally erupted in volcanoes. Angels didn’t exist. No one had ever seen one - at least not according to reliable sources. Neither had anyone ever come back from the dead to report on the afterlife. The concept of ‘soul’ was something humans had made up to ease their fear of dying. The body was just that, and when life ceased, that was it. There was no life after death, no judgment of the non-existent soul, no eternal punishment or life in paradise or Heaven or wherever the “good” souls were supposed to end up.

So, of course Lucifer wasn’t the Devil. But he believed that he was the Devil, believed it so much that Chloe was sure he’d still believe it on his deathbed, and when he died, he was going to get such a shock.

There was a story there, linked to those twin scars on his back, that might explain his delusion, but so far, he hadn’t let her in on that. She doubted even Linda knew.

She was pretty sure that she could fall in love with him if only she’d let herself. But how could she? He was borderline insane, or at least delusional. He was also witty, gentle - unless he had one of his shark moments -, considerate when it suited him, and loyal. And let’s not forget charismatic and, yes, beautiful.

If he only stopped his Devil talk, if only Linda could somehow cure him, she would be all over him like white on rice.

A sound from behind the stem of a palm tree disrupted her thoughts.

 

* * *

 

Lucifer’s morose thoughts of futility and hopelessness came to an abrupt standstill when the sound of footsteps reached his ears.

He’d recognize that step anywhere, and that ethereal sense of  _ her _ that he’d always had in her presence confirmed it. The Detective was nearby, walking towards the same beach that he was facing.

He raised his eyes in a suspicious look towards Heaven. If Dad was meddling again, he swore he’d… direct some choice words in His general direction.

The sound of her footsteps receded, growing fainter, and Lucifer found that this was a temptation that he couldn’t resist. Taking to the air once again, he followed her, airborne, like the Guardian Devil he’d always wanted to be for her.

 

* * *

 

Chloe’s training kicked in almost without conscious thought. A kick, a grab and twist, a full-body shift just so, and the would-be mugger was lying on the ground before her, getting his wrists clicked into a nice set of armbands.

There was a gust of wind. When Chloe looked up, Lucifer was standing ten feet away from her, doing a funny shoulder shrug, and something went “woosh”.

She blinked. That had looked like --.

Then he smiled, the white of his teeth clearly visible even in this dim light. “Hello, Detective. I see you have things well in hand.”

She blinked again. _ Impossible. _ “Uh, yeah,” she finally managed. “Uh, how did you get here, right now? I mean, why are you here?”

“Thought you might need my help, which you clearly didn’t,” he replied, coming closer and bending over the mugger, who wisely kept his mouth shut.

Chloe gave Lucifer’s back an inconspicuous once-over. His jacket was whole. If she’d seen what she thought she’d seen, there would have to be rips in it. So, she hadn’t seen it. Of course she hadn’t. Must have been a trick of the light. “Uh, thank you anyway,” she said, relieved. No wings meant no angels, no Devil, and her worldview remaining intact.

“Not at all,” he replied with that curiously old-worldly half bow of his head he sometimes did. “But since we’re both here, there’s this nice bar a little bit down the beach. If you’d like, once we’ve taken care of the trash…?”

He was probably insane or at least delusional, but he somehow still came through for her when it mattered. He’d hurt her, deeply, but he’d also been considerate and sweet, and he was impossible to resist whenever he gave her that soft, hopeful look. And, despite his Luciferness, he was a Good Man.

She gave him a smile, because even if they took two steps back for every step they took forward, she couldn’t keep herself from taking that step every time. “Sure.”

His smile was radiant. “Lovely.”

_ One day, _ she silently promised herself, and him. One day, she would have clarity. And meanwhile, she’d soldier on. Because, whatever he claimed, he  _ was _ worth it.


End file.
